Under the Weather: Who needs fireworks?

Jul. 2, 2014

Arthur, the first tropical storm of this Atlantic hurricane season, formed on Tuesday. Currently off the east coast of Florida, it’s not expected to make landfall until it reaches the Canadian maritimes. / National Hurricane Center

Written by

Todd Hill

News Journal

Last night’s light show, courtesy of lightning counts that were off the charts, may not have been as colorful as the fireworks that we’ll seeing over the next few nights, but the thunder that accompanied it certainly combined to make an impression.

The line of storms, which moved through Richland and surrounding counties around midnight last night, represented the leftovers of a derecho that caused a lot of damage in the Chicago area earlier yesterday. Given the ample humidity hanging over our area last night, the system still had plenty of energy to feed on.

Frankly, it’s kind of surprising last night’s storms didn’t cause any damage around here, although the lightning did fry the fuses at the top of a really tall utility pole my local electric co-op installed on my property a couple months ago.

A lazy cold front that slowly made its way across Ohio yesterday didn’t do much of anything to alter our air mass, but another, stronger one on our horizon today certainly will. Look for cooler, and most especially much less humid, air to begin working its way in here tonight.

We shouldn’t see much in the way of storms or even rain today, however, as the second front won’t have much instability to work with, although a few things could pop up well east of I-71.

Look for a beautiful Thursday and Friday, with plenty of sunshine and comfortable high temperatures in the mid-70s, a little below normal. Three years ago I saw the temperature at my rural location drop into the 40s early on the Fourth of July, and it looks like I will again this year.

Temperatures should rebound to seasonal levels by the end of the holiday weekend, all of which should be dry. Our next chance of rain arrives Monday.

For the record, June was 1.9 degrees warmer than normal and 1.73 inches wetter than normal at Mansfield’s Lahm Airport. It was not a top-10 month in either category, although as is always the case with summertime precipitation, it was highly variable across the area. While the airport received 6.48 inches of rain in June (a lot, but not as much as last June), other locations across the region measured a good deal more than that.

Below are the weather statistics for Tuesday, July 1 at my location 4 miles north-northwest of Fredericktown, Ohio: